Friday, October 19, 2007

New Times Owners Arrested

The two owners of the Phoenix-based New Times, Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, were arrested by Sheriff Joe Arpaio's deputies for an article in Thursday's issues. The charges were for making public the fact that the New Times had received a Grand Jury subpoena. The two were arrested because the Grand Jury proceedings are supposed to be secret and the information was leaked in an article under their byline. There is some thought that the arrests are payback for critical articles that were written about Arpaio and Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas in the New Times. This case has some serious repercussions for freedom of the press issues. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds in the coming weeks and months.

1 comment:

ljt said...

I'm delighted you thought to post this. It is indeed a *very* serious issue. It is with an odd sorrow, however, that I have to report that about an hour ago, the charges were dropped. Phooey! There goes our chance of having something worthy of the Supreme Court develop right in our own backyard!